Evel Knievel - One my favorite 70's toys for boys

When I was a little girl, I believed that certain toys were for boys, certain toys were or girls, and there were certain toys designed to be played with by boys and girls, such as board games, Snoopy, and plastic sand buckets. 

Most of the time I didn't bother playing with the toys designed for boys, although there were certain toys my brother had that I loved. One of them was Evel Knievel. You would wind-up a plastic base, and eventually he would fly off and ride his motorcycle for several seconds. I was determined to make him do leaps and fly like the Evel Knievel in the commercials, but no luck. Still, I loved the fact that he could ride on his motorcycle on his own. He was a cool guy with a removable helmet and shiny stars and stripes one-piece, that could have almost doubled as an Elvis costume if the bottoms of the legs were flared. 

Although he was daring and fun, Evel Knievel didn't make a good boyfriend for any of my Barbie dolls because they were much, much taller than him. I believed in those days that boyfriends or husbands for dolls should be at least the same height, or taller. I was willing to completely imagine that these dolls were real human beings, but for whatever reason my imagination wouldn't stretch far enough to allow dolls of two different scales to date each other. 

How do we establish our views of gender and gender roles after being on Earth for only such a short time? It's not like anyone ever handed me a rule sheet to follow, and my parents certainly weren't pushy about things like that. Maybe the message began in toy commercials, then continued in school among classmates and even the teachers. I remember teachers seating us boy-girl boy-girl at times in hopes of keeping us quiet. This meant that the class was made up of a row of boys, then a row of girls, then a row of boys, then a row of girls. I assumed it was some sort of punishment based on the way a teacher would announce it:

"If you guys don't keep it down I'm going to have to seat you boy-girl boy-girl!"

The students would groan in response.

If the teacher reached her limit and re-arranged the seating, I would be disappointed at first, and then I would always find that I enjoyed talking with boys just as much as girls. Although the message was clear to me that boys and girls were divided, I would quickly forget that this was supposed to be a punishment, and I would treat boys as equals. Talking with boys was the best punishment, way better than being forced to stand in a corner facing the walls. While I couldn't discuss the Evel Kneivel doll* with girls or walls, I could certainly discuss Evel Knievel with boys.

*This is how I learned that he wasn't a doll. He was a stunt man or an action figure, but never a doll. 

Thank you to chup123 for posting the Evel Knievel commercials on YouTube. 

Even Knievel is still fun for "big kids" today. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEUVm-Ja6lY&feature=related .